Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters
People received cartons of
milk and other groceries from the Golden Dawn party in Syntagma Square
in Athens in August.Members of the party have also attacked immigrants.
By
LIZ ALDERMANPublished: September 30, 2012
Greece’s Right-Wing Fringe
ATHENS — The video, which went viral in Greece
last month, shows about 40 burly men, led by Giorgos Germenis, a
lawmaker with the right-wing Golden Dawn party, marching through a night
market in the town of Rafina demanding that dark-skinned merchants show
permits.
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Some do, and they are left alone. But the action quickly picks up, as
the men, wearing black T-shirts with the party’s name, destroy a stall
with clubs and scatter the merchandise. “We saw a few illegal immigrants
selling their wares,” Mr. Germenis says in the video. “We did what
Golden Dawn has to do. And now we’re going to church to pay our respects
to the Madonna.”
Just a few months ago, the name Golden Dawn was something to be whispered in Greece.
But three months after the extremist right-wing group won an electoral foothold in Parliament, talk of Golden Dawn seems to be on everybody’s lips.
In cafes, taxis and bars, Greeks across the political spectrum are
discussing the palpable surge in Golden Dawn’s popularity, which has
risen in recent political polls even as the group steps up a campaign of
vigilantism and attacks against immigrants.
The poll gains come amid growing disenchantment over rising illegal immigration, and with the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras,
which is being forced by its international lenders to push through $15
billion in additional, highly unpopular, austerity measures. If Greece
were to hold new elections soon, Golden Dawn could emerge as the
third-largest party in Parliament, behind Mr. Samaras’s New Democracy
and the left-wing Syriza. Currently, Golden Dawn is the fifth largest,
with 18 out of 300 seats.
“We have a major socioeconomic crisis in which several hundred thousand
Greeks are losing ground,” said Nikos Demertzis, a professor of
political sociology at the University of Athens. “And you have a rising
number of immigrants in Greece, many illegal. This is creating a
volcanic situation where all the classic parameters for the flourishing
of a far-right force like Golden Dawn are present.”
Golden Dawn’s tactics are similar to ones it used before parliamentary elections in June. Preying on fears that immigrants are worsening crime rates and economic hardship,
the group has been stepping up attacks against immigrants, many of whom
are legal citizens, with the police frequently standing by. It is also
trying to expand its reach with the Greek diaspora.
The group recently opened an office in New York, announcing its presence with a sleek Web site
depicting a stylized Swastika against a darkened Manhattan skyline. The
Web site was disabled by hackers less than a day later and remains
down, and the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association condemned the group’s outreach, saying that “fascism has no place in the United States.”
Golden Dawn has also established an outpost in Australia, where Greeks
have been emigrating by the thousands to escape the crisis in their
homeland.
The group is still far from being a major threat to Mr. Samaras’s party,
or to his fragile three-party coalition government. Most Greeks express
alarm at the group’s rise, and anti-fascist organizations in Athens are
continuing efforts neighborhood by neighborhood to counter its
increased vigilantism.
Yet, rising political and social discontent is rich fodder for Golden
Dawn as it tries to cultivate a larger base. These days, it is not
uncommon for conversations to evolve into laments about the
ineffectiveness of Mr. Samaras’s government, before a mention of Golden
Dawn’s rise in the polls slips in.
“People have no faith in the political system,” said Dimitris
Kaklamanos, 41, a worker at a Shell gas station in the town of Piraeus,
on the outskirts of Athens.
Mr. Kaklamanos said he had long voted for Pasok, the Socialist party,
but grew disillusioned with corruption and the ineptitude of its
politicians. Now, he feels attracted to Golden Dawn, he said, whose
popularity he expects to continue to rise, especially as the group
replaces police and government services in poor areas where the state
has almost ceased to function.
Other political parties “know that Golden Dawn is gaining power and they
see that as a threat,” Mr. Kaklamanos said. “But Golden Dawn are the
only ones out there demonstrating they care about the Greek people.”
He cited food and clothing drives conducted by the group across a
widening area of Athens, as well as protections it extends to vulnerable
Greeks in neighborhoods where crime has surged in tandem with illegal
immigration.
Kaiti Lazarou, 55, the owner of a newspaper and cigarette kiosk in
Piraeus, agreed. “I myself have gotten food and potatoes from them in
Syntagma Square,” she said. “I would not be surprised if they become the
government one day, and why shouldn’t they? They protect the Greeks,
while Samaras and the government are out of touch with the people.”
In an interview last week, Mr. Samaras said that hundreds of thousands
of illegal immigrants fleeing hardship in Africa, South Asia and now
Syria were creating “major distress” in Greece, which they use as a
gateway to the European Union
after entering through Turkey. He appealed to Greece’s European
partners to modify immigration accords so that other countries could
take on a greater share of Greece’s immigration burden.
With more than 1.5 million immigrants in a country of about 11 million,
“this is creating extremism” that feeds the popularity of Golden Dawn,
Mr. Samaras said. Outlawing the group could backfire by fueling their
popularity, he added.
Mr. Demertzis, the University of Athens professor, said Golden Dawn was
effective because it did more than just utter political platitudes. Its
members “do their propaganda through deeds, exactly the same way that
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt does, or Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
In Golden Dawn’s case, the most high-profile activities center on
anti-immigrant campaigns, like the one documented in the video, depicted
as the actions of good Samaritans.
In another raid, filmed and posted on YouTube,
in the town of Missolonghi, Greek shopkeepers shout at Golden Dawn
members as they walk through a fruit and vegetable market kicking over
stands loaded with produce. The raid was led by another Golden Dawn
lawmaker, Costas Barbarousis. “These tactics were used in the
dictatorship!” one woman cries.
After the episodes, Golden Dawn lawmakers were barred from receiving the
protection of the police, who human rights groups say are increasingly
looking the other way when confronted with evidence of violence by
Golden Dawn sympathizers, with some officers seeming more sympathetic to
them than to their victims. Mr. Samaras played down concerns that the
Greek police were sympathetic to the group. “I’m very happy with the way
they’ve done their job,” he said in the interview.
Justice Minister Antonis Roupakiotis condemned the Golden Dawn attacks,
saying they created “conditions for the growth of neo-fascist practices
in the country.” He added that his ministry would consider tougher
penalties for racist violence. New Democracy, Pasok and independent
Greeks also condemned the attacks.
But such talk may only go so far.
“It’s the current government that brought more power to Golden Dawn
because the people are angry at what the government is doing,” said
Iakovos Zorzios, 73, a retiree whose pension has been cut as part of
Greece’s austerity measures.
“How can we not be angry when the government cuts our earnings so much?”
said Mr. Zorzios, who is bracing for yet another reduction in the
latest austerity plan forged this week. “How can they expect us not to
support Golden Dawn?”
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